Wrong House - Right Colors

THIS TITLE MAKES ME SMILE as it brings back memories of a conversation I had with a house painter that my wife hired to paint the towering walls in our stairwell at our new home on Lamppost Lane. It was a project I passed on because it would require climbing very tall ladders.

Frankly, I had begun to avoid ladders after one slipped out from under me years earlier while I was cleaning leaves from gutters in my first home. I was lucky not to break several bones in my body, and further, with great relief, both eyes remained in their sockets after landing face-first on my metal hose collection reel. It was massive and well-anchored and somehow survived my face’s impact. Perhaps my hard head helped in surviving the mishap.

What an idiot.

I enjoy painting, but after this disaster, I began limiting my ascent to the first two steps on ladders, and that has clearly been a practice in my world for a good fifty years. It taught me that someone other than me was meant to go up ladders. Painting the eighteen-foot-high stairwell in my new house was the ideal project for putting this newer behavior into practice. So, we hired a professional painter, and I remained grounded.

On the scheduled day of the painting, my wife asked me to meet with the painter she had contracted, reasoning that our office needed her presence far more than mine. I gladly accepted the assignment, knowing I could enjoy a more leisurely start to the day and additionally savor a second cup of coffee at home, even if I had to attend to our new yellow lab.

The painter showed up on time. That was always a good sign in my book. His glasses were speckled with yesterday’s paint. His coveralls had a rainbow of dried colors. I examined his appearance and found him to fit my image of a professional painter. I think his name was Dick, as I recall.

I asked him how long he had been a painter, and he proudly boasted that it was going on forty years. He repeatedly slid his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. I found him to be quite an amusing character during our introductions.

We went on to review the individual cans of paint in the hallway that my wife bought and labeled using a permanent marker. Each can had been clearly marked with the area to be painted.

Dick had a spiral pad and was writing down notes. Assigning the right cans to the right walls was of utmost importance to him. I was wondering if he had sniffed too much paint over the years, and perhaps, he was not dealing with a full deck, as he carefully checked and rechecked the paint cans. I questioned him, asking if he had ever painted the wrong rooms over the years.

He responded, “No, just the wrong house.”

I chuckled, not understanding his remark.

Again, he pushed up his bifocals and shared that a few years earlier, he had written down the wrong address for a customer who had ordered paint he picked up for the job site. The owner had left the front door unlocked for his entry. Dick painted all day and was finishing up when he said a lady entered the house through the garage and immediately let out a long, terrifying shriek.

“Who are you, what have you done?” was her breathless reaction, he claimed.

Dick went on and explained to me that he had the right room colors, just the wrong house.

This made me laugh out loud. I then assured him he had the right house. The color was our doing. Bright yellow for the stairwell. Yikes. I guess we were in a French Revival period.

Enough said.

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This past month, I found myself helping hang Boston ferns on fascia hooks at my girlfriend’s house. I can assure you, I now limit my ascent to only one step up her ladder. Just this one step brings back memories of the not-so-safe ladders I’ve been on in my life. I imagine I might be flirting with a metaphor as I close this essay.

The above photo is of my brother’s UP barn project. He apparently is really into using ladders. I always thought he wasn’t quite as smart as I, as he still goes up them. Good luck, Brother.